Sensing and signalling in plant stress responses: ensuring sustainable food security in an era of climate change

Abstract

‘EMBO India Symposium ‘Sensing and signalling in plant stress response’ held in New Delhi, India, 15–17 April 2019 Agriculture in the 21stcentury faces multiple challenges from biotic and abiotic stresses, which impose major constraints on crop yield. Under field conditions, the combined or sequential occurrence of environmental stresses poses a serious threat to global food security. Plants exhibit plasticity in their responses to environmental stresses, which may be attributed to their genetic and/or epigenetic makeup. One of the major challenges facing plant biology today concerns how gene regulatory networks function to generate morphological and adaptive diversity. Gaining a better understanding of the responses of crop plants to environmental stresses will allow the identification of improved genetic markers to increase yield stability and enhance productivity over a wide range of growth conditions. The availability of high-throughput sequencing technologies provides an opportunity to uncover the genetic/epigenetic basis of plant stress responses and adaptation. Furthermore, dissection of the molecular mechanisms underlying resilience will help us understand how plants cope with extreme environmental conditions, and ultimately lead to the development of climatesmart crops. Understanding the sensing and signalling mechanisms that plants use to perceive and respond appropriately to stress is crucial for the development of stress-resistant crops using current strategies and technologies.